Family Member Visiting A Psycic

[Fr. Antony Maria OSB]

I just found out today that my aunt has seen a psycic at least once and believes that this psycic can contact the dead (for instance, my grandfather who has been dead for four years). Besides that I only know that this lady uses terrot cards. Anyway, I don't know if this lady is a complete sham who makes some good guesses or not, but is there anything I can do to help out? The rest of my family members (besides my immediate family: Dad, me, brother, Mom) seem to believe this, as well. Right when I found out and when my aunt was playing the recording for everyone, I went inside to pray the Divine Office. I guess my question is 1)with this kind of thing, I know that the Church is against this, but does this involve demonic influence? 2)are there any specific prayers that I could say for this? and 3)if the opportunity comes up for me to address this to my family, what should I say? They don't necessarially believe everything that the Church teaches, according to my observations, anyway, and I know that if I did bring this up somehow we would get into a really involved conversation, so I would like to know what to say without putting myself into danger by researching things which I am not prepared to know about demons, etc. Anything would be greatly appreciated.

May God bless and protect you always in all of your endeavors!

Your Brother in Christ,

Joe

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='NazFarmer' post='1591668' date='Jul 4 2008, 10:19 PM']I just found out today that my aunt has seen a psycic at least once and believes that this psycic can contact the dead (for instance, my grandfather who has been dead for four years). Besides that I only know that this lady uses terrot cards. Anyway, I don't know if this lady is a complete sham who makes some good guesses or not, but is there anything I can do to help out? The rest of my family members (besides my immediate family: Dad, me, brother, Mom) seem to believe this, as well. Right when I found out and when my aunt was playing the recording for everyone, I went inside to pray the Divine Office. I guess my question is 1)with this kind of thing, I know that the Church is against this, but does this involve demonic influence? 2)are there any specific prayers that I could say for this? and 3)if the opportunity comes up for me to address this to my family, what should I say? They don't necessarially believe everything that the Church teaches, according to my observations, anyway, and I know that if I did bring this up somehow we would get into a really involved conversation, so I would like to know what to say without putting myself into danger by researching things which I am not prepared to know about demons, etc. Anything would be greatly appreciated.

May God bless and protect you always in all of your endeavors!

Your Brother in Christ,

Joe[/quote]

Hi Joe,

I'm sorry to hear about this. The most important thing, of course, is to pray. I believe Our Lady of the Eucharist will be particularly helpful since she's probably had experience combatting the occult with regard to the Blessed Sacrament.

1. All occult practices open the door to demonic influence. Those who involve themselves in occult practices are in serious danger of spiritual problems as severe as demonic depression (being "followed" by demons) or demonic possession (being taken over by demons).

2. There are a lot of prayers. I would recommend a few in particular. First, you can renew your Baptismal vows to keep yourself strengthened against demonic influence. I heard of a mother who did this on behalf of her son for a few years and he finally came back to the faith. You can find the vows here: [url="http://www.catholicculture.org/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=1047"]http://www.catholicculture.org/liturgicaly...iew.cfm?id=1047[/url]

Second, you can pray the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel: [url="http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/michael.htm"]http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/michael.htm[/url]

Lastly, holy water and other sacramentals are always a help. The Sign of the Cross is powerful and so is the Hail Mary (St. Louis de Montfort said that every time you say a Hail Mary, the devil cowers in fear and pain). Your Guardian Angel is always with you to defend you from the devil. He will watch over you as well, but his power to protect you is stronger when you acknowledge him by praying for his help (meaning that the more open you are to his help, the more benefit his help will be).

3. I would probably start by emphasizing why belief in psychics is irrational. My father talks about when he was in high school or college and how he went to a psychic who told him he was a pope in a previous life. I told him how irrational it was to believe that he was a pope, since we aren't reincarnated, and he thinks reincarnation is ridiculous. He still brings it up from time to time, but I think he's just trying to mess with me. Anyway, my point is you have to appeal to what they can agree with. If you start spouting off religious truths, however right you are, they'll just dismiss you as some sort of fundamentalist. Find out what they believe that might help convince them that it's wrong. Of course, also pray that they'll come to see the issue with the Church's eyes as well.

If you want good resources on the occult, try anything written by Fr. Gabriel Amorth, but take care not to read too much at a time. The professor of my angelology class in college (which included a unit on demonology) advised reading at least 4 positive Catholic books between reading anything on demonology.

I hope this helps.

God bless,

Raphael